An ambitious effort to prepare the community for emergencies will be launched 10 a.m. Saturday at City Hall, and scads of volunteers will hit the streets from there to spread information door-to-door, like modern Paul Reveres, throughout the town.
“The Boy Scouts of America are right. The single most important thing we can do to protect ourselves, our families, our neighbors, and friends in the event of a disaster like the earthquake in Haiti, Hurricane Katrina, and the tsunamis that devastated Southeast Asia is ‘be prepared,’” stated a letter to city council members about the project.
The Residential Emergency Preparedness Awareness Campaign, coordinated by the Hermosa Beach Emergency Preparedness Advisory Commission, aims to get information packets to each household, and also to conduct a brief four-question survey to determine residents’ level of preparedness.
The four questions are:
— Are you signed up for Code Red [the city’s automatic phone notification system]?
— Do you own a pet and is the pet registered?
— Do you have sufficient food, water and medicine to last you and your family 72 hours?
— Do you know what radio stations to tune into in the event of a disaster?
The information will be used to develop a picture of residential emergency preparedness in the city, organizers said.
The campaign is sponsored by the City of Hermosa Beach, Beach Cities Health District, California Water Service Company, and Consolidated Disposal Service.
The grassroots distribution effort involves volunteers from Hermosa Beach Neighborhood Watch, Leadership Hermosa Class of 2010, Beach Cities Health District, CERT emergency response volunteers, Hermosa Beach council members and commissioners, Kiwanis, middle and high school service clubs, and El Camino College students.
“Collating events” to prepare the information were held by with Hermosa Valley Builders Club members, Key Club and Circle K members from Redondo Union and Mira Costa high schools, and members of Leadership Hermosa Beach.
The Hermosa Beach Emergency Preparedness Advisory Commission’s official mission is “to educate and prepare the public to survive, endure, and recover from a natural or manmade disaster.” ER
